inXile Entertainment is a US-based video game development studio founded in 2002 by Brian Fargo, after he left Interplay Entertainment (which he also founded twenty years prior). The separation was not entirely amicable, hence the new studio's name refers to The Exile of the old Interplay staff by their new bosses.
The company's development would take quite a turn in 2012, when Fargo, having reacquired the rights to the Wasteland IP back in 2003, had unsuccessfully been attempting for years to court a publisher into producing a sequel to the first game. Inspired by Double Fine's success with crowdfunding an Adventure Game through Kickstarter, inXile would also turn to the website in March 2012 with a funding campaign for Wasteland 2, which funded successfully in 43 hours and would make 300% of its goal of $1,000,000. inXile has since returned to Kickstarter and launched campaigns for Torment: Tides of Numenera, a Spiritual Successor to Planescape: Torment as well as The Bard's Tale IV, an official continuation ofThe Bard's Tale Trilogy. Though their return to Kickstarter was initially met with some skepticism, this quickly evaporated in the light of the positive response to the game's release.
During the Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2, Brian Fargo came up with the "Kicking it Forward" program, under which inXile pledged to use 5% of post-launch net profits to back future Kickstarter projects. Following The Bard's Tale IV campaign, however, inXile seems to have moved to the Fig
as their new crowdfunding platform of choice, with Brian Fargo becoming a member of its advisory board (alongside Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart and Double Fine's Tim Schafer). Their first Fig campaign to fund Wasteland 3 has reached its funding goal in October 2016.
On November 10, 2018, Brian Fargo announced that inXile had been acquired by Xbox Game Studios alongside Obsidian Entertainment, making them both first-party developers for Windows and Xbox consoles, though Microsoft has stressed that they would like to keep the studio "unique" despite the acquisition.
See also Troika Games and Obsidian Entertainment, two other studios formed by former Interplay devs who left at different times.
Notable games developed at inXile:
- The Bard's Tale (2004)
- HEI$T (canceled in 2010)
- Hunted: The Demon's Forge (2011)
- Wasteland 2 (2014)
- Torment: Tides of Numenera (2017)
- The Bard's Tale IV (2018)
- Wasteland 3 (2020)
- Clockwork Revolution (TBA)
